Bob Lefsetz – Please Get A Blog!

It’s a great read if you care about the goings on in the music business.

Here are some gems from the recent newsletters:

On Amazon’s new music service:

If rental were such a good deal, if the public found it so appealing,why is Blockbuster on the verge of disaster? Why are people BUYING somany DVDs when they can rent them so cheaply? America has an ownershipculture. Sure, in the future there might be a migration to service, but not TODAY! Not until a much younger set comes of age.

Let’s see how you sell this. For fifteen bucks a month you can haveaccess to ALL the music. Well, not the Beatles or Led Zeppelin. Andnot every track on every album… And, if you don’t keep paying, youlose IT ALL! Shit, sounds more like radio than conventional musicpurchasing.

And what are the odds that independent company Amazon can create asystem that actually works, when its Seattle counterpart Microsoft hasbeen unable to do this? I mean maybe if Google moved into the sphere Imight be impressed. Then again, Google Video is a disaster, and ratherthan deliver a quality product without glitches, Google just labels allits efforts "beta", so you’ll forgive them. That’s what we need, a BETAmusic service to compete with Apple’s seamless solution.

Amazon IS correct in deciding to deliver files along with CDs.

But the fucked up labels can’t agree on a price. Even though you canbuy a CD and rip it FOR FREE! Paying NOTHING extra for the files.

Oh yeah, copy protection will foil that. And destroy your business,just ask kicked upstairs Andy Lack. And then there’s the ridiculousposition of the RIAA that ripping is illegal. What’s next, is the RIAAgonna post a cop in every kid’s basement? THIS is a strategy that’sgonna win. Actually, after seven years, hasn’t the RIAA realized alegal solution IS NOT the answer?

I don’t agree with everything that Bob says about Amazon (read my post – Rooting For Amazon – for my thoughts) but you have to admit that he’s got an opinion and he lets you know what it is.

Here’s Bob’s take on the recent DMCA actions against YouTube videos:

Have you been following this youtube thing? With NBC requesting thesite pull all its videos? How fucking stupid can you BE!

"Lazy Sunday". That’s what seems to be breaking SNL wide open afteryears of dormancy. It’s just like a band. You’re living in obscurity,and then the Net catches hold of you and you BLOW UP! Can you sayARCTIC MONKEYS? If you’ve got something good, you can’t keep it down onthe Net. It’s human nature, people want to tell EVERYBODY!

So busy enforcing their copyrights, major entertainment companies areshooting themselves in the foot. This is the kind of hype, the kind ofmarketing, that can’t be bought.

Take KT Tunstall. Fucking idiots at Virgin want you to PAY for hervideo on iTunes! What schmendrick wants to pay for a video he probablyhasn’t seen to BEGIN WITH! But, saunter over to youtube, and you cansee KT doing her act, performing "I Want You Back" on a French TV show.THIS is the kind of publicity you desire. If you’re BUILDING an act.

And now there’s this Aerosmith thing.Funny how it never occurred to me. But it’s perfect. Instead of JANIEhaving a gun, CHENEY’S got a gun!

Hate to tell you, but "Janie’s Got A Gun" is verging on twenty yearsold. There are kids who’ve NEVER heard it. Oh, Aerosmith is aperennial, but even MTV no longer plays their videos. Their albumsdon’t sell, they’ve become a NOSTALGIA ACT! And now, some enterprisingWeb denizen has BROUGHT THEM BACK FROM THE DEAD! Giving "Janie’s Got AGun" MORE airplay than it’s gotten in YEARS! And, hear the parody andyou want to hear the original. And, ultimately you believe in the act.

Hell, I got e-mail from a friend’s niece, barely in double digits,asking what the underlying song to THIS parody was.Of course, it’s the Backstreet Boys’ "I Want It ThatWay". She was TOO YOUNG FOR THE BACKSTREET BOYS!

All of this is anathema to rights-holders. They must protect theirrights at all costs. To their detriment. This is promotion in thetwenty first century. This is FREE MARKETING!

I totally agree with Bob on this post (and click on the Cheney’s Got A Gun link – it’s pretty funny).

So if Bob Lefsetz is so savvy about music and online marketing, why is he publishing via a 1990’s technology, the email newsletter? Why doesn’t he have a blog? It would be so much easier just to link to his posts than to cut and paste the whole thing.